Comparing mid Michigan’s graduation rates with the rest of the state

Drop out rates in school districts in the mid-Michigan area are for the most part, within a few percentage points of one another.

Regular high schools in mid Michigan vary from about 80 percent graduation rates to 100 percent.

The state average is 77 percent.

Drop out rates in regular high schools vary from 0 percent - Clare, Fulton and Beal City in 2013 - to Mt. Pleasant with a high of 8.3 percent.

Advertisement

Some of the other local, regular schools’ drop out rates:

Alma - 2.92 percent

Breckenridge - 2.27 percent

Carson City/Crystal - 2.86 percent

Central Montcalm - 5.22 percent

Chippewa Hills - 7.01 percent

DeWitt - 2.69 percent

Farwell - 4.23 percent

Greenville - 6.08 percent

Ionia - 7.65 percent

Ithaca- 3.92 percent

St. Louis - 6 percent.

The trouble, however, with calculating the drop out rates is that there are so many factors that have to be considered. Students may move, choose to go to a new school, or they may in fact drop out. They may sign up for an alternative education program either on line or in another district.

Some of these moves are known to the school district, some are not.

Special education students may age out. Students in special education classes may stay until age 26, at which time they receive a certificate, which counts as graduation.

It’s hard to get an accurate assessment of the number of actual drop outs.

Mt. Pleasant Superintendent Mike Pung said increasing numbers of students are taking five or even six years to graduate - yet another category and exception. If the student doesn’t graduate in four years, it counts against the district. When the student graduates after five years, it’s counted as a graduation at that point.

Schools in bigger cities often have lower graduation and higher drop out rates.

Lansing’s Eastern High School has a 66 percent graduation rate and a 22.86 percent drop out rate.

Everett has a 67 percent graduation rate at 14.60 percent drop out rate.

In another big city comparison, Grand Rapid’s Union High School has a 62 percent graduation rate and a 24 percent drop out rate.

And that brings up Ashley.

Whenever there are numbers and stats and because of its tiny size, a portrait of Ashley as a district is always skewered.

What Ashley High School Principal Traci Gavenda tries to explain about MEAP scores - by way of example - is that if one student does poorly on the MEAPS, it’s 5 percent of a 20 member class.

But if one student does poorly in a 100 member class, that score is only 1 percent of the total.

Ashley’s numbers show a graduation rate of just 76.92 percent and a drop out rate of 15.38 percent.

But those numbers are difficult to pin down. Gavenda said that not one of her 24 seniors have dropped out this year, although she had one transfer.

“Nobody has dropped out,” she said. “I know exactly where they are.”

However, she agreed with Pung that increasing numbers of students are taking five years to finish, instead of four.

Pung also pointed out that Mt. Pleasant’s special education program is bigger than some entire districts. It has between 650 to 750 students.

For Alma’s Superintendent Sonia Lark, the state is, “scooping data out of programs” to come up with the numbers, which can make some districts look good when compared to troubled ones in the state.

However, “accountability is good,” she said. “We have to pay attention to drop out rates.”

The data put out by the state - and the districts - shows overwhelmingly that alternative education programs are not doing very well at all.

Not every district has an alternative education program, but the graduation rates are abysmal. For the most part, they vary from 15 percent in Clare to 33 percent in Breckenridge and Mt. Pleasant.

There are a few exceptions but again, these are within very small districts.

Beal City has an alternative school graduation rate of 77 percent with only 11.1 percent dropping out. Hemlock’s numbers include a 70 percent alternative graduation rate with a 10 percent drop out and Farwell has a 63 percent graduation rate in it’s alternative high school with a 15 percent drop out rate.

About the Author

Linda Gittleman’s alma mater is Western Michigan University where she majored in speech and English and her hometown is Alma. She’s worked at the Morning Sun's Alma office for more than 20 years. Reach the author at lgittleman@michigannewspapers.com
.